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01/18/2016

Report released: "Improving Population Health Planning in Ohio"

The report, created by the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, provides recommendations for strengthening Ohio’s population health planning and implementation infrastructure and outlines ways to align population health priority areas, measures, objectives and evidence-based strategies with the design and implementation of the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model.

HPIO was commissioned by the Governor’s Office of Health Transformation (OHT), the Ohio Department of Medicaid and the Ohio Department of Health in September 2015 to facilitate stakeholder engagement and provide guidance on improving population health planning in Ohio.

Ohio's performance on population health outcomes has declined relative to other states over the past two decades, and Ohio has significant disparities for many health outcomes by race, income and geography. Ohio also spends more on health care than most other states. “Part of the challenge is the lack of coordination across ten state-level health improvement plans and 110 local health district and 170 hospital community health assessments/plans,” according to an OHT release.

In December 2014, the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation awarded Ohio a four-year $75 million State Innovation Model, or SIM, test grant for implementation of episode-based payments and rollout of a state-wide PCMH model over a four-year period. As part of that funding, Ohio must also develop a population health plan.

OHT will coordinate the implementation of the HPIO recommendations in 2016.